Some of you will be amazed to learn that the word gullible is not in the dictionary. Moved to CC. EDIT: Dang, Joe beat me to it.
I have no way of knowing whether these guys are scammers or not, but I've often wondered about the mentality of someone who would set up a hoax like this. The obvious question is: why? If it is a scam, at the very least they're going to look like jerks; and at worst (i.e., if they took investors' money to finance their hoax) they could end up in jail. It's a lose/lose proposition. What would be the motivation for a scam like this?
I've always believed that cold fusion would probably work at some point since I first heard about it around '89. The scientists whose funding was paid for by research in other energy fields were never able to repeat the results, but they were also never able to conclusively disprove them either. The technology now may be at the point where someone can decisively prove cold fusion in the next 5 years or so. Also, with the manufacturing cost per watt for some solar modules having fallen below $1 in the last year or so, I see solar possibly reaching grid parity with coal power generation costs within another year or so. At that point, we probably won't need cold fusion as much anyway.
I read some of the articles. Apparently, they might be using nanoparticles to assist with the reaction. As nanoparticles weren't widely available 20 years ago, perhaps this was what was missing. Also, nanoparticles can cost $1000 per gram. So, if someone buys a quantity if them to experiment with, it is usually a serious experiment due to the extremely high cost of the materials.
Big mistake. It has one of the most number of discussions over on Zerohedge. Apparently they are not as picky as to the news worthiness. The implication if true is obviously earth shattering to the energy market. The loss is yours. http://www.zerohedge.com/article/it...-cold-fusion-create-copper-byproduct#comments
Cold Fusion or LENRs (Low Enrergy Nuclear Reactions) have been demonstrated with many hydride forming metals - everything from palladium and platinum right through to tungsten and nickel. And it is commonly believed that the palladium rods in the original Pons and Fleishman experiment may have been contaminated with minute amounts of platinum. In other words, these complex reactions have a lot to do with the combination and interaction of hydride forming metals and the particular surface structures they form. At present, scientists haven't figured out the mechanism that triggers these LENRs. In other words, they can't explain why they will occur on one side of a cathode and not on the other side, even though both sides are to the best of their knowledge identical. Once they figure out the actual mechanism, nano technology could play an important role in doping the cathodes in a particular way to stimulate the reactions. But to my knowledge, no-one has come forward with a proven theory as to what the mechanism is so I'm not sure if the term nanoparticles is being thrown around here just to sound impressive. They may simply be using the term nanoparticles to describe the traditional cathode doping method of light electrolysis which can fuse very small hydride metals to the surface area of a cathode prior to an experiment. This is more likely the answer. Also, LENRs tend to destroy or deteriorate cathode structures, so any nanoparticle structure would get damaged after a relatively short period of use. Remember, we're talking about minute hot spots of several thousands of degrees here. Once prepared, most cathodes are only good for a one experiment. I will go out on a limb here and say that within 20 years, every kettle in the world will boil water using cold fusion technology.
You have an interesting take on this bear. My feeling is this centers on whether the nickel/hydrogen was converted to copper. It would take an atom level reaction of some sort to change one element to another, I believe. If they can prove that atom reaction happened, this might go somewhere.